On Thursday February 2nd, 2023 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon  will review and Discuss the controversial 2011 book Caesar's Messiah  by Joseph Atwill. The subtitle of this work is: "The Roman Conspiracy  to Invent Jesus and Atwell presents convincing evidence that the  Flavian family of Roman patricians with the help of renegade Jewish  historian Josephus, may have done exactly that.Atwill purposes that  the Gospels were written by members of the Flavian family to make the  Jesus story correspond with Titus's conquest of Judea and Jerusalem.  He presents quotes from Josephus "War of Jews" to back this up. This  will be a hard book for fundamental Christians but not for Gnostic  Christians. Atwill holds off presenting his Imperial time-line until  page 302, keeping the casual reader unaware that Christianity was  flourishing and perishing in Rome long before the Gospels were  written. So even though he may be correct about Roman influence on the  Synoptic Gospels, he is wrong in assuming that Christianity began in  Rome as a False-Flag operation. Perhaps the most shocking event  described in the book is the alleged origin of the Christian  Eucharist. Josephus recounts a wealthy Jewish mother killing and  eating her infant son and offering part of him to her neighbors.  Saying that he will be "A myth to the world." Of course Atwill is nice  enough to suggest that Josephus wrote the dialogue but it still sent  me to my copy of Josephus to make sure he wasn't exaggerating. He  wasn't. So join us for an hour exploring gaslighting and false news  in the first century.